🇮🇱🇸🇦 Israel is increasingly concerned by what it sees as Saudi Arabia’s weakness in confronting the Houthis and expects the Saudis to take stronger action against the group. A senior Israeli security official says Israel will not intervene directly but will assist Saudi Arabia as much as it can. - Channel 12

🔗 Faytuks Network

🇸🇦🤝🇮🇷 Sources say that yesterday after an unexpected meeting between Iranian and Saudi officials in Riyadh, the KSA made a "significant payment" to Iran and in exchange several VLCCs were able to cross the Strait of Hormuz during the night and early morning without coming under Iranian fire, representing the largest shipment of Saudi oil to pass through the Hormuz in recent months.

Saudi oil exports are headed to China, Japan, South Korea and India.

🔗 The Officials

📝 🇺🇸 🇷🇺 The Russian military could conduct air, missile, or drone strikes or a limited ground incursion against one or more Baltic states to test and seek to break NATO’s resolve to invoke Article 5 and respond effectively on its basis.

A limited Russian attack would aim to create a situation in which NATO is unable to agree how, or if at all, to respond to a Russian attack. Any near-term Russian conventional attack would be tailored to maximize the possibility that NATO states would fail to unify and provide military assistance as an alliance to an attacked member state.

A scenario in which NATO does not unanimously vote to honor an invocation of the Article 5 mutual defense clause, or in which a state under Russian attack declines to invoke Article 5 at all out of concern that it would not receive unified support, would significantly damage NATO’s credibility and unity — an outcome that would achieve a longstanding Russian objective and immensely expand Putin’s space to maneuver and plan future attacks against a divided alliance.

https://understandingwar.org/research/defense-of-europe/the-russian-military-campaign-against-europe-defining-the-threat/

🇮🇷🇷🇺🇨🇳⚡️ — Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf:

The unipolar order in which one side extracts concessions through force and coercion has ended.

China and Russia’s vetoes rejected the political abuse of the Security Council and reaffirmed the rule of law.

We must defend multilateralism; unilateralism serves no one’s interests.

🇺🇸🇪🇺⚡️ — The Pentagon is considering a major reduction of the U.S. military presence in Europe, potentially withdrawing around one-third of the roughly 80,000 American troops stationed there, with some proposals involving cuts of up to 40,000 personnel, NBC News reports.

The review could also result in the removal of aircraft, warships, and weapons, with forces in countries including Germany, Spain, and Italy potentially affected. No final decision has been made, and recommendations are expected in November.